


Connection

by Aisshe



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-30
Updated: 2010-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-09 19:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aisshe/pseuds/Aisshe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during "Doomsday."  Rose's thoughts immediately after being saved by Pete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Connection

“Take me back!  Take me back!”  Rose sobbed, pounding on the white wall in front of her, not caring how much the impact stung her fingers and bruised her palms.  Maybe if she pounded hard enough, the wall would break.  Maybe that would be enough to break through the Void, break through to the other side.  Through the Void, through that now-impenetrable wall between universes.  Between her and the Doctor.

 

Over her sobs, she heard Pete mutter something about it stopped working, that the breach was closed.  She pounded the wall once more, then splayed her hands across the cool surface, leaning into the wall as though she could will herself through the solid matter.

 

If she pressed herself close enough, she almost imagined she could feel the Doctor, there on the other side, standing just as she was.  Cheek to cheek, fingertips pressed together, as if they were separated by nothing more than an insubstantial sheet of drywall, rather than the un-crossable depths of the inaccessible Void.  The agony of loss seared through her, ripping into her heart with a feeling she had never known could burrow so deep into the core of her being.

 

She didn’t know how long she stayed that way, clinging to a connection that she knew in all probabilities was false, or at best, imagined.  Tears streamed down her face, smearing her makeup into obscurity, but still, she couldn’t make herself bring her hands down for even a second.

 

She knew their eyes were all on her – Pete, Mickey, her mother.  She could feel their sympathy, their pity, knew they were probably trying to work through the right words to say to her.  But she didn’t care, c_ouldn’t_ care, and for a long time, she stayed pressed up against the wall, refusing to leave and sever that last connection.  That would make it too final.

 

As long as she stayed her, at this wall, she could still cling to the hope that the Doctor would work another miracle, that he would be able to re-open the sealed breach between universes.  She just had to cling to that thought.  Otherwise, she didn’t know what to do.

 

She had defied all of their wishes – even the Doctor’s himself – to stay with him.  Because she had seen in his eyes a feeling that was completely contrary to the words his mouth was uttering.  While he had tried to impress upon her the importance of staying with her mother, to have a safe life, his eyes had been saying something entirely different.  Something he would never say out loud. 

 

_Don’t leave me._

And she had seen the disbelief and anger at her defiance mingled with a desperate sense of relief when she returned, the understanding at her words.

 

_I made my choice a long time ago and I’m never going to leave you._

 

She didn’t know how long she stayed that way, but finally, with a despairing sob, she turned away and sank to the ground, back pressed up against the wall.  Tears still blurred her vision as she stared out across the dimly-lit, badly-damaged room.

 

“Why’d you do it?” she choked out between sobs.  “Why’d you have to come back and catch me?  If you were only going to bring me back here…you should have let me go.  If this was the alternative…I wish I’d just ended up in the Void.”

 

Pete looked pained at her words, unsure of how to reply, but Rose wasn’t looking for an answer.

 

“I wish I’d just fallen in the Void,” she murmured again to herself.  A fresh wave of loss ripped into her as she remembered the last look on the Doctor’s face…that terrible fear and helplessness as she tumbled towards the breach, hand outstretched but unable to reach her.  Relief had passed over his features briefly when Pete had jumped between worlds, jumped into Rose’s path and stopped her inevitable plunge through the breach, but it had quickly passed into despair again at the moment they both realized that to save Rose was to separate them…forever.

 

Now, she was trapped here, in a world she didn’t want to be in, with no way of returning…to her own world, and to the Doctor.


End file.
